Friday 19th October 2007

3.30pm ToryDiary: Cameron meets John Key

3pm Parliament: Douglas Carswell MP reviews the week

Noon: Parliament has been updated with John Whittingdale challenging the Government on council tax, Francis Maude highlighting the importance of third sector independence and William Cash's EDM on the EU Treaty.

11am ToryDiary: 39 Tory MPs (so far) demand Treaty Referendum before or after ratification

10.20am Columnist Theresa May MP creates her fantasy Westminster rugby team!

PlayPolitical: Kevin Rudd, Australian Labor Leader, eats his own ear wax

Wrongman: Gordon Brown pledges to honour his promises - but will he?

10am ToryDiary: Tory Muslims' report defends Iran's nuclear ambitions and offers comfort to extremists

ToryDiary: Will voters ever trust Brown again?

Jack Perschke: Aid perpetuates poverty

Brown signs up to the EU Constitution/ Treaty

"Gordon Brown has set aside up to three months to ratify the new EU reform treaty after it was agreed by European leaders last night, raising the spectre of the tumultuous parliamentary battles over Maastricht 15 years ago.  The Prime Minister briefed his Cabinet colleagues on Tuesday to expect another protracted tussle on the latest treaty, starting in the new year and continuing well into the spring, The Times has learnt."

Crime statistics

"The number of recorded drug offences in England and Wales rose 14% in the second quarter of this year alone, the Home Office has revealed." - Sky News

"David Davis, the shadow Home Secretary, denounced the Government's "shambolic and failed" policy on drug-related crime, saying: "These statistics show Labour have patently failed to deliver on their rhetoric. Drug abuse is not an isolated crime – it destroys lives, wrecks communities, fuels other crime and is a major cause of our broken society."  Overall, recorded crime levels fell 7% to just under 1.3 million offences over the period. The numbers of violent offences dropped by 8%, which included a 14 per cent drop in the most serious violence.  Robbery showed a 9% fall, sexual offences also dropped 9% and criminal damage fell by 10%. Property crime, including burglary, criminal damage and car thefts, dropped by 7%." - The Independent

Controversial report from Muslim Tories

"A body set up by David Cameron to advise the Conservatives on Muslim issues has criticised the Government's relationship with Israel and concluded that Iran has "legitimate" reasons for wanting nuclear weapons." - Telegraph

Britain sinks further into the red

"The public finances moved further into the red last month as official figures showed public sector net borrowing at a record high for a September.  Just a week after Alistair Darling, chancellor, revised up his borrowing forecasts for this year and next in the pre-Budget report, public sector net borrowing rose to £6.9bn in September, up from £5.7bn in the same month last year and above analysts expectations of a £6.3bn deficit." - Financial Times

Inheritance tax is one levy that makes good economic sense - Irwin Stelzer in The Spectator

Ming's demise contains a warning for Brown

"Conventional wisdom, to which Sir Ming himself subscribes, has it that his age was his undoing...  Troubling as that interpretation is, it is in a way a consoling one for Sir Ming. The truth is less exculpating for him, and more worrying for Mr Brown. Sir Ming flopped less because he is old than because he is uncharismatic—at least, not charismatic in the ways that 21st-century politicians are called upon to be. They need, it increasingly seems, to conform to certain minimum physical standards: bald pates and paunches are out. They need a user-friendly 'vision'€, a soundbite-sized theme of their leadership. Having a good 'back story' as does Sir Ming, a former Olympic sprinter, and as Mr Brown thinks he does too - does not compensate for failure on these scores." - The Economist

LibDem leadership race

"The race to become the next leader of the Liberal Democrats looks set to be a straight fight between Chris Huhne and Nick Clegg after another potential contender ruled himself out yesterday.  Steve Webb, the left-wing chairman of the Lib Dems' manifesto team, said the contest would force him to spend too much time away from his family." - Scotsman

"Yesterday the Clegg campaign was gaining momentum with support from Lord Ashdown, the former leader, and a string of MPs including Steve Webb, a policy expert who is on the left of the party. Mr Clegg's speech today will include warm praise for the leadership of Sir Menzies, whose vote could carry weight with the party if he comes out publicly for Mr Clegg, who is expected in particular to praise Sir Menzie's stand against the war in Iraq and against the Government's disregard for "hard-won freedoms and rights"." - The Independent

ePolitix.com profiles Nick Clegg.

Nick Clegg or Chris Huhne: no one can change the Lib Dems' failure to find a niche - Stephen Pollard in The Spectator

A longer parliamentary recess is interpreted as extra holidays by the BBC

Michael White previews the debates over Jack Straw's looming legislation on 'gay hate' - Guardian

Please use this thread to highlight other interesting news and commentary...

Thursday 18th October 2007

8.45pm PlayPolitical: Rudy on Hillary - She's never run a city, never run a state, never run a business...

6pm ToryDiary: The Independent? It isn't.

5.30pm PlayPolitical: Giuliani is asked by a youngster - How should we prepare for an alien invasion?

5pm ToryDiary: George Osborne believes that there is a "good chance" that Labour's CGT changes might be abandoned

2pm Seats and Candidates: Four Scottish selections

Noon ToryDiary: The Conservatives must intensify pressure on BBC to reform

Noon Parliament:

• Comments are now enabled on this section...
• Roger Evans AM writes about the fall-out from Metronet
• Will the Government nick our Health Systems Partnership Fund idea please?
• Peter Bone MP advocates making it compulsory for children to wear cycle helmets

11.15am ToryDiary: What should Conservatives do about obesity?

9.45am WrongMan: Just Gordon posters

Nigel Fletcher: Thatcher and Cameron – In Government's Waiting Room

On the day that we learn that one-in-four NHS Trusts are failing on infection (BBC)...

Patrick Barbour on Platform: Political management has failed the victims of C-Diff:

"Alan Johnson, the current Secretary of State for Health, is typical.  Before becoming an MP he worked in the Communication Workers Union, a position for which no healthcare expertise was needed.  Since he was first appointed to a ministerial position eight years ago he has been a minister at the DTI and at the DfES and a Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, the DTI and the DfES before moving to the Department of Health.  That’s more than six jobs in eight years, in four very different departments.  How does any of this equip him to run one of the largest and most complex organisations in the Western world?  It doesn’t."

Gordon Brown set to sign revived EU Constitution today

"Gordon Brown is today poised to sign Britain up to the revived EU constitution, dismissing claims from David Cameron that if he breaks his pledge to hold a referendum "no one will trust him on anything else"." - Daily Mail

"According to the [Financial Times/ Harris] poll, 70 per cent of those questioned in the UK, France, Germany, Italy and Spain want a referendum, 20 per cent do not, and 10 per cent are unsure.  Some 76 per cent of Germans want a referendum, 75 per cent of Britons, 72 per cent of Italians, 65 per cent of Spaniards and 63 per cent of French."

"European Commission chiefs will be able to order the UK to increase its oil reserves in case of emergencies in OTHER nations.  It would mean Britain would have to hand over stocks to EU states suffering an energy crisis." - The Sun

"Debunking the Eurosceptic myths about the EU Reform Treaty" - The Independent

In Louise Bagshawe's ConservativeHome column, she predicts that Brown's broken pledge may cost him the next election.

Tories will help to lead fight against Government's CGT changes amidst signs of concern on Labour backbenches

"The Conservatives have allied themselves to the growing grassroots campaign to force the Chancellor of the Exchequer to reverse his decision to raise capital gains tax on business assets by 80pc from next April.  George Osborne, the shadow chancellor, hosted a meeting yesterday of leading London-based entrepreneurs behind the Downing Street petition that has now attracted more than 11,000 signatures.  He said the Tories would fight the proposal and even if unsuccessful would vote against the measure in the 2008 Finance Bill. "We think there's a good prospect to force them into a U-turn," he said." - The Business

"George Mudie, a former Labour deputy chief whip and leading supporter of Mr Brown, called for the changes to be shelved for a year pending a policy rethink.  Mr Mudie, a member of the Treasury Select Committee, told The Times: “I think that there are unintended consequences to the measure that are becoming apparent. There is no real financial reason why we don’t just consult and do it later – put it off and then make a job of it.” - Times

Lord Ashcroft defends his financial support of the Conservative Party - Telegraph

Shadow Welsh Secretary adopts ‘wait and see’ attitude to powers referendum - Western Mail

The Western Mail story is based on Cheryl Gillan's Q&A with ConservativeHome readers.

LibDem leadership race

Paddy Ashdown backs Nick Clegg in an article for The Guardian.

"Former City economist Chris Huhne last night claimed his background made him the candidate most likely to defeat Gordon Brown as he launched his bid for the Liberal Democrat leadership... In an interview with the Guardian, he called for an extension of local democratic control over schools and said politicians should do more to ease the time pressures facing young, dual-earning families."

Charles Kennedy effectively rules himself out of race - Independent

Britons paying highest taxes for 22 years - Daily Mail

All party committee of MPs warns of future "labour vacuum" when current migrant workers return home - BBC

Peter Riddell urges Gordon Brown to begin setting out his vision with a focus on immigration - Times

Half of secondary schools are failing to give children a good education - Daily Mail

The Sun Says: "The latest report on schools is bleak. It shows poor kids are eight times more likely to fail than children from middle-class families. Those in care are worst hit, with bad behaviour wrecking youngsters’ chances of concentrating on lessons.  One in seven children’s homes are not up to scratch. And 1.6million kids in deprived areas have the “odds stacked against them”."

On this day in 1963, Sir Alec Douglas-Home became Prime Minister - BBC

Please use this thread to highlight other interesting news and commentary...

Wednesday 17th October 2007

8.30pm: LOUISE BAGSHAWE'S 'THURSDAY COLUMN' IS LIVE NOW:
Tomorrow, Labour loses the election

5.15pm ToryDiary: Is The Sun cooling towards bullying Brown?

5pm BritainAndAmerica: Why America Doesn't Ratify Treaties

3pm ToryDiary: Tories say immigration is a 'core vote issue' for all Britons

Noon Events: 40 forthcoming events listed, including debates on the future of political parties, what powers to devolve to local councils, and the just war tradition.

Noon ToryDiary: Live PMQs blog

9.45am Parliament:

• Bernard Jenkin questions Defence Secretary on military spending and Iraq commitments
• John Bercow uses EDM to highlight the plight of Darfuris forcibly deported to Sudan
• Philip Davies questions impact of migration on housing needs

Columnist Peter Franklin examines the flaws in the Left's arguments against cutting inheritance tax

Jeremy Brier writes for the Platform about how the Lib Dem party is the problem, not its leader

Interviews: Cheryl Gillan, Shadow Minister for Wales, answers your questions

The purpose of the LibDems is in question

"If the Liberal Democrats did not exist, would it be necessary to invent them? The third party of British politics has been lost almost without trace over recent months as Labour and Conservatives squared up to each other in the altered landscape of Gordon Brown’s premiership." - FT

"With Tony Blair gone, the Iraq question has lost much of its political heat; Cameron's arrival has reduced the toxicity of the Conservative brand. Fairweather Lib Dems can now go back to one or other of their previous homes" - Jonathan Freedland in The Guardian

"The choice that lies before the Lib Dems is whether they wish to fight the last war or the next. The last war was against the Labour Party, whose current decline is not necessarily so temporary as it would like to imagine. The next one is against the Conservatives, whose revival is almost certainly more fragile than they hope." - Simon Heffer in the The Telegraph

Who will win out, the Cleggies, the Huhnistas or the Webbies? - Michael White in The Guardian

Miliband grilled over EU constitution

"The foreign secretary was savaged over the draft reform treaty by the House of Commons European scrutiny committee this afternoon, prompting renewed calls from the Conservatives for a referendum. David Miliband has repeatedly insisted that Britain's "red lines" are not under threat, but was told by the chair of the committee that the new treaty used "bullying tactics" to get around them." - Guardian

"Is there any chance that the PM will, even at this late stage, give us the referendum he had promised? Or even, in a brilliant coup de théâtre, veto the whole text? No. The deal has already been done. It was done years ago. Everything else - the swaggering, the threatening, the haka of synthesised aggression - is a ritual played out for domestic consumption." - Dan Hannan in The Telegraph

"Britain is a major trading nation - the third largest in current account terms - and our prosperity depends on trade. Yet the EU's heavy-handed regulations hit all businesses based in the UK, damaging their ability to respond flexibly and swiftly to changing world conditions." - Norman Lamont in The Telegraph

Making British Poverty History                                        

"David Cameron has attacked Gordon Brown's attempts to eradicate poverty, accusing him of "undermining" the family. Mr Cameron lambasted the Prime Minister over his tax credits system which he said rewarded couples for living apart." - Independent

"God, what a wet David Cameron comes across as at times. Some of the content of his speech yesterday was such typically bourgeois-liberal projection that it made me wonder if perhaps I lived secretly somewhere to the right of Attila The Hun." - Deborah Orr in The Independent

"David Cameron invaded political territory previously the preserve of Gordon Brown yesterday when he vowed to make child poverty history in the UK, largely by adopting a tougher stance on welfare reform and greater use of the private sector." - Guardian

> Yesterday's ToryDiary report of the speech

Migrants better off

"Migrants are more reliable and harder working than British-born workers and are boosting economic output by £6 billion a year, according to a government study published yesterday. Immigrants have a better work ethic than the British and are willing to work longer hours with less time off sick. Weekly mean earnings of migrants are also £60 higher than their UK counterparts." - Times

> The full Home Office report

The BBC has gone way beyond a public service role

"The development of the internet, digital television and other new technologies has been a challenge to the BBC, and one to which it has responded with an avalanche of licence-payers' money. The culture this has created is deeply unhealthy, and Mr Thompson is quite right to seek to begin to unpick it." - Telegraph leader

Please use this thread to highlight other interesting news and commentary...

Tuesday 16th October 2007

5pm ToryDiary: Ming Who?

10.30am ToryDiary: Making British Poverty History

10.15am Parliament updates:

• Ann Widdecombe tackles Alan Johnson on appalling state of the Maidstone Hospital Trust
• Bob Spink MP uses EDM to pay tribute to Special Constables
• Rob Wilson MP fails to get answers from Minister on criminality and inward migration

ToryDiary: Divided Tory MEPs may replace Timothy Kirkhope next month

PlayPolitical: David Cameron with Governor Schwarzenegger in California

Columnist Andrew Lilico: Everyone hates you, America, but so what?

"Whilst there is yet wickedness and sloth and selfishness in the world, positive action by those that are good will give rise to hatred at least as much as love.  Americans need to accept this as a startpoint - but too often they worry that they are not loved, expecting that they should be and not understanding what cause for hatred there could be."

Platform: Richard Calhoun advocates a referendum on the Union

"Merciless"

"Sir Menzies Campbell bowed swiftly to the inevitable last night by jumping before he was pushed as leader of the Liberal Democrats.  The 66-year-old MP, who faced an increasingly open revolt inside his party, decided to fall on his sword rather than face a bloody coup like the one that toppled his predecessor, Charles Kennedy, less than two years ago." - Independent

Analysis of Ming's resignation

"Over the last few weeks three new factors fuelled what was already a fairly febrile mood within the Lib Dems: David Cameron's revival, Gordon Brown's decision to postpone an election probably until 2009, and the polls that showed a further decline in support for the third party." - Steve Richards in the Independent

"Sir Menzies Campbell is the first victim of Gordon Brown’s decision to delay an election. Whatever the suddenness of last night’s dramas, his long-term position became unsustainable once an election was put off until next year or later, when Sir Menzies would have been 68 or 69." - Peter Riddell in the Times

"The bloodless coup came quicker than anyone had expected or imagined. But ultimately it was David Cameron and the rising fortunes of the Conservatives that did for Sir Menzies Campbell." - The Herald

"Politics benefits from a plurality of ideas and vigorous debate – and the Liberal Democrats have more freedom than the other parties to think such big thoughts, since they are not preoccupied with preparing for or remaining in government. Their return to the political fray would be good news for British politics" - Telegraph leader

The resignation letter in full - Times

Yesterday evening's ToryDiary: Ten instant reactions to Ming's resignation

Next steps for the LibDems

"If Sir Menzies's successor is a moderniser, who manages to convince his party's activists that the world has changed - that they must be liberal on both social and economic issues, in favour of low taxes as well as gay marriage, pro-choice in health and education as well as over abortion - then there will be a wide-ranging impact on politics." - Rachel Sylvester in the Telegraph

"Smart, multilingual and ambitious, Nick Clegg has been tipped as the next Liberal Democrat leader for longer than he has served as MP for his leafy constituency at the posh end of Sheffield." - Julian Glover profiles Clegg in The Guardian

Welfare state speech

"The Tories will step up their campaign to destabilise Gordon Brown today by targeting Labour's failure to reform the welfare state. David Cameron will unveil proposals to overhaul the social security system and pledge to deliver the changes Labour has promised for more than a decade." - Daily Mail

Voting against CGT

"Conservative MPs will vote against part of the upcoming finance bill if it includes controversial changes to the capital gains tax (CGT), detailed in last week's pre-budget report, the shadow chancellor George Osborne said yesterday. As a growing number of lobby groups and business people voiced their dismay at the proposals, Mr Osborne said his party would be campaigning with business to block the changes outlined last week." - Guardian

"In another development that could raise the political pressure on the prime minister for a rethink, MPs on the influential trade and industry select committee will debate this week whether to summon ministers to explain the changes." - FT

The lost bequest

"The donation had seemed like the answer to a prayer for the Conservative high command. In the aftermath of the 2005 general election, the Tories were struggling to make ends meet and the party was deeply in the red. Mr Justice Henderson ruled that Mr Kostic, who was born in Belgrade, would not have left the money to the Tories if he had been "of sound mind"." - Independent

Yesterday morning's ToryDiary: Party told it can't keep £8.2m donation

Humanists accuse Gummer of saying they had no place at conference

"An un-Christian dust-up is under way between John Gummer, the Catholic Tory MP, environmentalist and cow eater, and the British Humanist Association. Each accuses the other of dishonesty. The humanists claim that Gummer attacked them a fortnight ago at their stall in Blackpool." - Independent's Pandora

Andrew Gimson pens a must-read sketch on Ann Widdecombe's intervention during questions on the Maidstone hospital scandal - Telegraph

Robert Halfon's letter defending Lord Ashcroft's funding of marginal seats appears in The Guardian | Related ToryDiary

Ed Vaizey MP also blogged about this subject yesterday - warning that incumbent MPs already have massive advantages and Lord Ashcroft is only giving candidates a fair chance.

Please use this thread to highlight other interesting news and commentary...